Nepal - Everest

(Mount Everest, aka Sagamartha, aka Chomalongma, aka the Big 'un.)

Back in Kathmandu the atmosphere was as pressurised and hectic as before but it was great to get round some more of the temples and also to meet other travellers - especially Anna and Laura from Italy, who are working as volunteers on childrens welfare projects in Mumbai. They had travelled by bus and train for 3 days to get to Nepal - now that's real travelling. Best of luck with the return trip guys - hope this time it is free of midnight border crossings manned by immigration officials dressed only in their underpants.

It was also great to meet up with Adrienne again, if only for 24 hours. Also, Adrienne's laid-back approach to the chaos of Kathmandu was a real eye-opener and left me wondering whether it wasn't I who needed to relax and not Kathmandu... this would be on my mind when I arrived in Delhi with thoughts of changing my travel plans.

Adrienne had only arrived one day and I was leaving the next. The flight to Delhi was the 25th of the big trip by my calculations (I really need to take up Sudoku or something) and pretty unremarkable.

The 24th flight however was something quite different - one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

On the morning of my last day in Nepal, an already-jet-lagged Adrienne and I got up at 5am to catch a 6.30 flight with Buddha Air (genius) from Kathmandu to... Kathmandu.

This was possibly the world's best scenic flight. In an hour we were whisked (it was a day for cliche and superlatives) to within a few miles of Mt Everest.

(Right - A very excited Adrienne waits for take-off)

What an experience.

I have always had a picture in mind of Everest and the Himalayas. In this picture, the mountains were always firmly part of the landscape. After seeing the mountains towering over the clouds, and seeming almost separate from the landscape, I will never think of them in the same way again!

(Buddha Air - I can think of so many taglines... the plane that takes you to a higher plain?)

(When can you get into the flight-deck these days? The co-pilot points out some of the highest peaks in the world, including Makalu, Lohtse and Kanchenchunga. Hope my spelling hasn't offended too many mountaineers).

(How good is this???!!!!)

(If you think this is cheesy you should have seen the t-shirts.)

Nepal - Pokhara

(Machapuchare - the fishtail mountain - pokes out of the clouds)

I was very much looking forward to visiting Pokhara. My only problem with the place was that I kept calling it Pakora, despite my best efforts not to. (when you start off down the wrong road...) I was distinctly worried that I might give the impression of intending some kind of slur against the locals.

To avoid future problems, I've crossed Kabeb and Bijha off my Indian travel itinerary.

Pokhara is a fair-sized town that serves as a base for a large volume of travellers trekking on trips into the Annapurna range. As such, it is as burdened by tourist shops, bars and 'helpful' guides as Kathmandu, but with little of the incredible temples and history.

What Pokhara does have is the best setting of any town I've stayed in on this trip. Pokhara sits on the edge of a lake surrounded by lush green hills, which are overlooked by a fantastic panorama of Himalayan peaks.

As i found out, these assets, or lack of them, make a successful trip to Pokhara pretty much entirely weather-dependent. On the first of my two days there the rain never stopped, and in fact briskly built into quite an impressive storm. At one particular moment a clap of thunder like I have never heard before - akin to a small asteroid strike, or perhaps a truck-bomb going off - exploded over the town, then rumbled on and on, reverbating round and round the valley.

The second day started slightly less bleakly than the first. Encouraged, I went for an adventurous walk into the greenery, hoping to reach the top of one of the nearby hills. Despite my initial reluctance, a local 'guide' insisted on accompanying me on the walk up the hill. After a good half hour of hiking and exchanging language tips - German for Nepali - I noticed that my new friend had stopped to fiddle with his sandals. "Leaches" he said, shaking his head more in sombre acceptance than disgust.

(Right: culture clash as Linkin Park meets traditional Nepalese arts.)

With horror I looked at my own feet. I had five leeches already attached to my right ankle and four of the little fellas enthusiastically marching up my left shoe. Though smaller than those in Tasmania, they were surprisingly determined and one managed to leave a steadily leaking hole in my right foot.

(Does this picture make you think of Barry White? When there's leeches around and the humidity is through the roof, a dip in the lake is Yak ecstacy - ohhhh yeahhhh.)

Shortly after the heavens opened again, soaking me through, but also washing the blood out of my sock and trousers (always a silver lining!).

(Pokhara crack suicide squad in heavy camouflage.)

By this point, with the thick cloud cover offering not even a glimpse of the Himalayas, I had started to wonder if I'd have been better off staying in Kathmandu where at least there were temples and museums to be visited.

Then - a miracle!

Within the space of two hours late in the afternoon the rain stopped and there were even blue skies over the valley. The mountains - if they existed - were still shrouded in thick cloud and the locals held out little hope for that cloud shifting.

So it was more in hope than in expectation that I took a taxi up to a local viewpoint, which - in good weather - was said to have a spectacular view of the Annapurnas. I, and a few others, spent the late afternoon gazing into the clouds, willing snow capped peaks to appear.

After a while it was possible to 'imagine' peaks and colls, ice-sheets and rocky slopes.

And then, just as the sun was going down, real summits and peaks peaked through the clouds.

It was a very special moment.

Without that stroke of luck and good timing, I would never have had any concept of how huge those mountains are and how incredible they look from Nepal's valleys.

The photos say it all...

(Annapurna IV - a nearly 8,000m high peak)

As a footnote, I did visit one museum when I was in Nepal, and for the love of all that is holy was it not one of the weirdest and most disturbing museums I've ever come across... If nothing else, the collection was comprehensive, with a dead body representing each of Nepal's indigenous species. Yes, I did say dead body. This was not an experience for the faint hearted - particularly the 12 foot long Python skeleton. I could have taken any number of scary pictures of the dead - and in many cases visibly still decaying - exhibits. There really was only one word for the place!

(wrong)

(wronger)

(wrongerest)

Nepal - Kathmandu

(Local girls under the watchful eyes of the Buddha.)

Kathmandu is another of those place-names that's managed to retain some exotic feel to it, post-mass tourism, like La Paz, or Addis Ababa, or Timbuktu.

It is a very special place, dirty, dusty and incredibly noisy, but definitely, definitely unique. It was also my first introduction to Indian style poverty on the trip. I'd been to Sri Lanka before but wasn't fully ready for the onslaught of hawkers, wise-guys and scams.

It's in a different league to Belize and Bolivia.

It is possible to lose your patience and compassion when you are constantly targeted. I found myself a bit worn out, especially after my really positive experience in Cambodia.

But then I had to remind myself that more than two-thirds of Nepal's 25m population live on less than $2 per day. What would I do? With a good proportion of the tourists arriving in the country making 100 times as much, I think I'd do pretty much the same thing.

(Temples in Nepal are a mixture of Buddhist and Hindu, just as in Cambodia. The inside of some of the temples was quite earie and beautiful.)

It's the incredible disparity in incomes that's the real driver for this experience. I have been constantly reminding myself of this both in Nepal and since arriving in India. It makes me feel better and worse at the same time!

(I had the good fortune to arrive in Kathmandu the day a public demonstration by the communists was taking place in the centre of the old town.)

(Shiva and his consort Parvati look down on the residents of Kathmandu. On this occassion, they are watching a communist rally, the relevance of which would surely have escaped the original builders of the temple.)

The temples here are 400+ years old, and provide perfect grandstands for public gatherings. RIGHT: though communism in Nepal is of a religiously tolerant type, not everyone seems convinced by the political rhetoric.

As fantastic as Kathmandu is, after 2 days the noise and hassle gets a bit wearing. The car horns were getting me down, and keeping me up, until i didn't know whether I was coming or going.

I had an urge to see the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas up close and had heard great things about Pokhara, a town sat right at the foot of the famous Annapurna range. So, on the spur of the moment, I booked a flight with the wonderfully named 'Yeti Airlines'.

There were literally a bus-full of passengers on the flight and as the bus drove away from the terminal building I imagine that every one of my fellow passengers was, like me, nervously and silently speculating on which of the jumbled assortment of small aircraft would carry us between the highest mountains in the world.

There was widespread relief when we pulled up at a modern looking turboprop plane. A relief, I didn't share as I recognised it as a Jetstream 41, an aircraft built - in part - by friends and relatives of mine at Prestwick airport...

...friends and relatives who had mentioned on a few occassions that they would never fly on them!

Obviously I arrived fine, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this. And Pokhara turned out to be a very mixed experience, but with some fantastic moments - pictures to follow!

Cambodia (Part 2)

(Monks at Bandei Srei temple)

The variety of architectural styles and the endlessly different and interesting sculptures, carvings and engravings are what make the temples of Angkor such a huge draw for tourists. Thirty kilometres to the north of the main cluster of temples lies one of the smallest but most beautifully carved buildings of all.

Bandei Srei was built towards the end of the temple building period, after which the Angkorian empire collapsed, in large part due to environmental disaster - over-development led to a fall in the water-table and insufficient water supplies to support the local population. Isn´t it sobering how often this type of story is repeated wherever I go...

To get to Bandei Srei, I had to hire a Remorque-moto (and driver). This is a bit like a motorbike with a covered cart attached to the back (kinda like the local version of a tuk-tuk - I should have taken a photo of it). It took more than an hour to get there, which works out at about 15 mph, so I probably wasn´t imagining things when we were overtaken by kids on Bicycles on the downhill stretches.
photo

The slow journey gave me a great view of the countryside though. From the very limited parts I saw, Cambodia is clearly a very beautiful country. I would absolutely love to have spent some time in the more remote parts. On the plus side, at least I have that to look forward to in Africa when I will have a chance to really get out into the middle of nowhere.

On the trip back from Bandei Srei I visited the Landmine Museum. Cambodia perhaps more than any country has suffered from the evil of landmines. They were laid all over the country in the 1970s and 80s by both sides in a series of bloody wars. I wasn´t aware that landmines are actually designed not to kill, but to maim, the idea being that a wounded soldier on the battle field takes up more of the enemy´s resources than a dead one. With that kind of mentality, it´s maybe not surprising that no regard was paid to civilian casualties. Unbelievably, many landmine sites weren´t even mapped or recorded with the result that it´s not just the cost that prevents removal of landmines these days, but also the fact that no-one knows where many of them are.

At the landmine museum there is also a rehabilitation centre for children injured in landmine explosions. There are pictures on the walls with stories of individual kids. The landmines may have been laid in the 1970s, but the dates of birth for these children are mostly in the 1990s. Can´t imagine a clearer definition of the term ´innocent victims´.

I met someone who works at the museum and made a donation of $50 from my fund towards the work that goes on there.
(This photo came about because the monks asked if they could have their picture taken with me, rather than the other way around. They were very excited (for monks) and queued up one after the other, while their friend took pictures with his camera. Maybe they had never met someone from Bolivia before!)

(I absolutely love this engraving. The whole temple was covered in similar art forms, all made 800 years ago. Nothing quite like this elephant though, which is just superb. )

(Ta Prohm - incredible sights as the jungle steadily takes back ground that was lost over 800 years ago.)



(Dawn at Angkor Wat)

Cambodia (Part 1)

(A monk from the temple stands in front of the incredible engravings around Angkor Wat)

Regular readers may remember the trouble I had recently with visas. An online application form required some swift work with paint-shop pro to manufacture a passport photo. After all this work, I got to Cambodian customs and immigration only to find that I'd left my visa in Australia. Thankfully, after watching me rummage fruitlessly through my rucksack for 10 minutes they just smiled and waved me through.

This was a pointer to the great hospitality of Cambodian people. Being there was an awesome feeling and the best possible start to travelling again.

Overall I though it was a very 'easy' country to visit. Even though there is poverty and the Siem Reap area is largely dependent on tourism, I found people to be good-natured, friendly and relaxed. There was none of the cynicism and exploitative attitude to foreigners that I would soon find in other parts of Asia.

The big attraction of Siem Reap, and of Cambodia generally, is the temple complex at Angkor Wat. It's hard to describe the physical extent and cultural importance of these sites without talking in numbers.

72 major temples covering 100 square miles, built between 900 and 1300AD.

Angkor Wat - the largest of the temples - alone had a population of 80,000. Next month, a much smaller figure will sum up Angkor Wat´s rise in popularity and importance.

On the seventh of July this year (7/7/7), the New Seven Wonders organisation will announce in Lisbon the result of a lengthy process to select the new seven wonders of the world. From a shortlist of 21, including the Easter Island Statues and the Sydney Opera House, the top seven will be ranked in order. I'd be surprised if Angkor Wat wasn´t in the top 3. http://www.new7wonders.com/

The temples are now coming under a new threat though, from the number of visitors. Tourism has exploded in Cambodia, since it emerged from the horrendous instability and mass murder of the 1970s and 1980s. As recently as 1994, Khmer Rouge terrorists were abducting tourists and the tourism industry was negligible. In the last 10 years it has taken off to such an extent that Siem Reap is awash with building projects - hotels, museums, shopping centres. I arrived at one temple just as they were taking the covers of 5 new sets of binoculars.

(Above Right - The temples have been an inspiration to artists and film-makers for eons. More recently, computer game designers are said to have pinched parts of the temples for game design. I could definitely recognise Prince of Persia, Serious Sam and of course Tomb Raider (mis-spent youth, and not in a good way!). It was an uncanny and surreal feeling walking around...)

I hope the amazing growth rate in tourism doesn´t destroy the fantastic atmosphere and friendly nature of the local people. This is another place you just can´t get to soon enough...

One last figure - I took 500 pictures in 3 days. And could have taken more. Here´s a few.

The variety in architectural styles could keep you coming back for years. I am still amazed at how Scottish this particular scene looks. The only place in Scotland where you´d get the same heat and humidity would be in a Glasgow tanning salon though.

(Left - climbing up the temples is definitely at your own risk - often quite high risk! This is about 80 feet up. A bit of unnecessary risk in this case though as - right - I found there were stairs on the other side when I got to the top)

The temples were built in devotion to both Hindu and Buddhist beliefs. In more recent times, newer beliefs have sprung up - such as the belief that by touching the breasts of one of the thousands of temple nymphs, you will have great fortune in love. I touched the boobies of the one on the right in this picture. Here´s hoping it will bring me the love of a good woman. (Maybe not one with such a high-maintenance hairstyle though).

Angkor Wat, Bayon (above, and the picture with the face) and the other temples are just a joy to photograph. What a place!